Chapter Two: Poor in Spirit
POOR IN SPIRIT
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
MATTHEW 5:3
I grew up in poverty until I was about fourteen years old. Those were years of the “Great Depression,” and many men were out of work. My father did have a job, but he worked fifty hours a week for about forty-two cents an hour. We lived in a small, four-room house of about four hundred square feet. There were neither closets nor cabinets. We did have indoor plumbing, but no hot water except what we heated on the kitchen stove. Many nights our supper consisted of pinto beans and corn bread. The only books in the house were my parents’ two Bibles. We had no toys.
Yes, I grew up in poverty —but not the depth of poverty Jesus was talking about when he used the expression “poor in spirit.”
The Greek word that Jesus used for “poor” is the word ptochos. It is used to describe not ordinary poverty but abject poverty. Ptochos is not like my parents struggling to make ends meet. Rather it describes a person who is completely destitute and helpless to do anything about it.
Abject poverty is illustrated by Lazarus in the well-known parable in Luke 16:19-31. Lazarus was described by Jesus as a “poor man.” The fact that he was laid at the rich man’s gate indicates he was a cripple, helpless to do anything about his plight. He desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Unlike my childhood, he had no pinto beans and corn bread. He had nothing. In fact, Jesus did not tell us whether or not he received that which fell from the rich man’s table. He only said that Lazarus desired it.
This is a picture of abject poverty, but even this is not the kind of poverty Jesus was talking about when He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” As used here, spirit refers to one’s inner being, our self-awareness. Specifically here it means how we evaluate ourselves with regard to our own spiritual condition. This abject poverty of spirit comes from our awareness of our own dreadfully sinful condition.
“Poor in spirit” is probably best illustrated by the tax collector in Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14). Everything about the man displays his poverty of spirit. He stands far off —we might say today that he takes the very last seat in the church. He does not lift his eyes; he is ashamed of his sin. He beats his breast; he is in agony about his sinful condition. But it is his prayer that really captures his poverty of spirit: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
First of all, note his use of the word merciful. To us today that is a very ordinary word. But the Greek word, hilaskomai, translated here as “merciful,” presupposes the just and holy wrath of God toward our sin. The tax collector’s cry is a cry for deliverance from that wrath which he knows he deserves.
Furthermore, contrary to our English translations, the little word a does not appear in the original language. Literally the tax collector says, “God, be merciful to me, sinner” (or “the sinner”). Author John Blanchard observes that the tax collector
did not think of himself as one sinner among many, but as if he were the only one. He was so overwhelmed with the sense of his sin, his moral bankruptcy and his spiritual destitution that, as far as he was concerned, anyone else’s sin paled into insignificance by comparison.[1]
The tax collector was poor in spirit. We may think that he deserved to be poor in spirit. After all, he was a tax collector, considered by his own countrymen as a traitor, collecting taxes for the Roman government, and becoming rich in the process. But consider Isaiah the prophet, who was undoubtedly a righteous man. One day he had a vision of God in His infinite majesty and moral purity (Isaiah 6:1-5). Isaiah’s response was, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
The word unclean which Isaiah used was the word lepers were required to use as they walked along the road, crying, “Unclean, unclean” (Leviticus 13:45). In effect Isaiah was calling himself a moral leper. He was utterly devastated by his own sinfulness as he saw himself in the presence of the infinitely holy God. Isaiah was also poor in spirit.
This poverty of spirit is not just for the unbeliever recognizing his need of salvation. In the Beatitudes Jesus is talking about the character traits of those already in the kingdom. And He says we should be poor in spirit. It should be the ongoing daily attitude of one who is growing spiritually.
Believers who are growing continue to see more sin in their lives. It is not that they are sinning more; rather they are becoming more aware of and more sensitive to the sin that has been there all along. It is not the flagrant sins of society around us, but rather such sins as our selfishness, our pride, our jealousy and envy, and above all, our judgmental spirit toward others. And it is the realization that even these sins, which seem so minor in our eyes, would bring us under the wrath of God, were it not for the atoning blood of Christ shed for us on the cross, that should cause us to be poor in spirit.
Toward the end of his life the apostle Paul wrote, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1:15). Paul used the present tense to describe himself: He didn’t say, “I was” or “I used to be” but “I am.” For Paul, poverty of spirit was a continuous self-assessment.
The person who is poor in spirit recognizes that his or her best deeds are always mingled with the corruption of one’s sinful nature, with impure (that is, mixed) motives, and with imperfect performance. This person recognizes that he or she never comes close to obeying the law of God as Jesus defined it in Matthew 22:37-39: to love God with all our being, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
At the same time, those who genuinely see their spiritual poverty do not wallow in it and say, “Oh, what a miserable Christian I am.” Instead they look to Christ and His Cross for cleansing from their sin. They love (or would love if they knew it) the picturesque words of an old hymn by William Cowper (1731–1800), “There Is a Fountain.”
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s vein;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stain.
The second stanza should be even more meaningful to those who are poor in spirit.
The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day;
And there may I, though vile as he,
Wash all my sin away.
Does that resonate with you at all? Do you see yourself as vile as the thief hanging on the cross? If so, you are in good company, for Jesus said to the thief, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). And remember the tax collector praying in the temple, “God, be merciful to me, [the] sinner”? Jesus said of him, “This man went down to his house justified” (that is, counted as righteous by God —Luke 18:13-14). So the poor in spirit mourn over their sin, as we will see in the next chapter, but at the same time they rejoice in the forgiveness of their sin, and the righteousness they have in Christ.
Those who are poor in spirit also resonate with the first words of another old hymn, “The Solid Rock,” written by Edward Mote (1797–1874): “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” They see Christ’s blood and righteousness as their hope not only for eternity but for God’s favor each day. They groan over their sin and earnestly pursue holiness, but they do not trust in their holiness. Instead they say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty” (Luke 17:10).
Poverty of spirit has to do primarily with our increasing awareness of our ongoing struggle with sin and our frequent failures. But it also expresses itself in other ways that display humility in action. For example, instead of minimizing or disregarding their sin while maximizing the sins of others, the poor in spirit do just the opposite: They identify with the tax collector praying in the temple, who regarded himself as the only sinner. They identify with the apostle Paul as the foremost of sinners. Those who are poor in spirit look upon other believers as better than themselves. They are like the apostle Paul, who considered himself “the least of the apostles” (1 Corinthians 15:9) and in fact, “the very least of all the saints” (that is, all believers —Ephesians 3:8). And when looking at themselves, those who are poor in spirit freely acknowledge that all they are, and anything they have accomplished, is because of the grace of God at work in them (1 Corinthians 15:10).
People who are poor in spirit also see themselves as utterly dependent on God and His grace in their entire lives. They recognize that they are dependent on God even for “life and breath” (Acts 17:25). They freely acknowledge that any abilities, talents, spiritual gifts, and accomplishments are gifts from God. They identify with Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 4:7:
For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?
So instead of boasting or seeking recognition for themselves, they, like the apostle Paul, boast only in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ (see Galatians 6:14).
Those who are poor in spirit do not murmur or complain about adverse circumstances God allows or brings into their lives. Instead they acknowledge that there is still much sin remaining in them, and that God often uses adversity to expose sin and to grow them more and more into conformity to Christ. (See Romans 8:28-29 and Hebrews 12:10-11; I wrote more about this in chapter 4.)
The person who is poor in spirit has a deep, awe-filled reverence for God and His Word. He or she wonders why the Creator and Sustainer of the universe should condescend to look on a mere creature —and a still-sinful creature at that. Therefore, this person delights to worship and adore this One who is infinite in His being, power, and holiness and who yet numbers the hairs on our heads.
Does it seem as if I am exaggerating our lowly condition? I think not. After all, it was Jesus who chose to use the Greek word ptochos to describe our spiritual condition. Other words, not nearly so strong, could have been used. It was Jesus who gave us the story of the rich man and Lazarus, and the parable of the tax collector praying in the temple, to help us understand what it means to be poor in spirit.
We live in a culture that promotes self-esteem. And I am concerned that this attitude has permeated the body of Christ. We see ourselves as better than we are. We look at sinful society around us, and we can be like the Pharisee who prayed, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men” (Luke 18:11).
As we read over this description of what it means to be poor in spirit, many of us will confess, “No, I am not poor in spirit.” But we should pray that we will become so. As we saw in chapter 1, we are commanded to pursue humility, and I am convinced that true humility begins with and grows out of being poor in spirit. It is when we face the sinful attitudes and practices that still entangle us, when we begin to realize how desperately far short we fall from being the people God intends us to be, that we can begin to express humility in action.